Best Microscope Photos of 2010
A closeup of China's most famous seasoning: soy sauce.
The dread of animal lovers, fleas are small, agile, usually dark colored, wingless insects with tube-like mouth-parts for feeding on the blood of their hosts. A flea can jump vertically up to 7 inches and horizontally up to 13 inches (around 200 times their own body length), making the flea one of the best jumpers of all known animals.
Cacoxenite is a mineral commonly found in magnetic and limonite iron ores. The name comes from the Greek words for "bad" and "guest," because the phosphorous content of Cacoxenite lessens the quality of iron smelted from ore containing it.
Endothelial cells line the entire circulatory system, from the heart to the smallest capillary. These cells reduce turbulence in the flow of blood, allowing the fluid to be pumped farther.
Red seaweeds have had a more diverse evolution than the green and the brown. The red color comes from larger amounts of red pigments overriding the green pigment chlorophyll, which lets the seaweed survive in low-light conditions where green seaweeds could not.
Bird of Paradise flowers are associated with liberty, magnificence, and good perspective. First introduced to Europe in 1773 when they were grown at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, they are a common ornamental plant in Southern California and the official flower of Los Angeles.
A closeup of the paper pulp nests that many social wasps produce. Unlike honey bees, wasps have no wax producing glands. Many produce a paper-like substance primarily from wood pulp. Wood fibers are gathered locally from weathered wood, softened by chewing and mixing with saliva. The pulp is then used to make combs with cells for rearing other wasps.
The olfactory bulb is a structure of the vertebrate forebrain involved in the perception of odors.
It's not surprising the zebrafish has shown up twice in the top ten. It's a common and useful model organism for studies of vertebrate development and gene function in scientific research.
It's the number one deadliest animal on the planet going by kills per year, transmitting disease to more than 700 million people annually. Judges were stunned to see this level of geometry in nature, describing the structures seen here in the mosquitoes heart as shockingly repetitive. Does that look like a heart to you?
